Things are getting serious now. This could be a biggie for us trout fishermen.

In committee, there were both Dems and Reps voting for the bill. Contact your legislators on this one. Please let us know if you do. I contacted mine (again).

House Bill 2235 could see consideration by the full House as early as next week thanks to its 26-8 approval by the Appropriations Committee. The bill requires a minimum five-year freeze on further leasing of our state forests for deep gas drilling. The drilling industry already has access to approximately 700,000 acres of state forest, about one-third of the entire state forest system and nearly half of the acreage that overlies the Marcellus Shale formation. The Department of Conservation and Natural Resources estimates that 5,000 to 6,000 wells will be drilled on these acres.

I just received a reply from my Rep and he said that he is supporting the bill. I have written him many times about this subject and it is good to see that he will support HR 2235. Troutbert put the link up so it is very easy to send a message to your Rep.

thanks for the link, message sent. was talking to a guy this weekend who was retired from the gas/oil industry, he agrees that PA needs to put a halt to future permits and take a look at the long term effects of drilling. he predicts that moving at the speed we are now will result in certain disaster.hopefully this bill will go through. things just need to be done correctly.

DGC.............that's exactly the way i feel about this , we can accomplish this safely and cleanly , we can do it 'cause we are who we are , i feel strongly about what our role , as flyfishers and lovers of fresh clean water , should be , we have this site and the ability to communicate with each other in real time , there are also several tiplines with 800 numbers to call , and remember to follow up to see what happened , i've been keeping an eye on three active sites and so far all looks ok , but if that changes i know what i have to do. Troutbert did a great thing by posting that TU link we should all do that at least.